The basic problem is, how do you encourage people to tell the truth? You need to protect them from the negative consequences of doing so.

This survey uses a clever strategy to make it happen. By introducing a chance that the answer to the doping question is "yes" whether they are doping or not, individuals can be truthful when asked whether they've been doping without their "yes" necessarily indicating that they've been doping.

Even if anonymity would be compromised and the data would be hacked, seeing in that data that an athlete answered "yes" would not be a confession. Because there's a fixed chance, by design, that the response would be "yes" regardless.

Yet when we want to know the fraction of athletes that dope, we can just subtract the noise probability from the fraction of people saying "yes", and that will be an unbiased estimate of the fraction that dopes, provided this setup makes individuals answer truthfully (More realistically, it merely reduces the bias the downwards bias by reducing, but not eliminating, lying).

The statistical cost of this procedure is that the estimator becomes noisier, but with a large enough sample, that doesn't matter.

In theory, you could do the same thing asking just medallists, but because the sample is much smaller, the noise problem would be worse, and in addition, because the sample is smaller and easily googable and recognisable, it might invite unwelcome public speculation about which individuals, if x% of them dope, are the dopers.

Anticipating this, medallists would be more likely to lie regardless of the setup.

Thanks SS, that was my understanding of it. It might work for finalists and medalists if the sample is large enough (not sure how big it has to be), but the incentive to lie and lower the percentage is greater as it's a smaller group, it's defined and easier to point fingers at.

Years ago, the basic premise of these was go into a booth.Toss a coin/roll a dieHeads answer the question part A (doping or whatever sensitive subject)Tails answer the question part B (did the coin land on tails)

Things have got a bit more sophisticated and a lot of these are done electronically and automatically.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been accused of "doing nothing" about its growing corruption crisis, by senior official Dick Pound.

Several IOC officials have been implicated in corruption in 2017.

In the latest case, police last week raided the home of Carlos Nuzman, head of the Brazilian Olympic Committee, as they investigate "strong evidence" of vote-buying to secure Rio's 2016 bid.

"We've taken a severe hit in terms of credibility," Pound told BBC Sport.

"Every time another IOC member is implicated in something potentially nefarious we lose more credibility."

On Monday, IOC president Thomas Bach said the organisation would act on corruption allegations "once evidence is there".

But Canadian Pound, speaking to the BBC's Alex Capstick at an IOC executive board meeting in Lima, Peru, said: "What are we doing taking all these hits and doing nothing about it? We've got to recognise that we haven't done enough.

"If your conduct has put the IOC into disrepute, you should be liable to at least vigorous investigation and potentially sanctioned for it.

"That has not happened."

"Are you going to believe me or what you see with your own eyes?"

“It doesn’t matter what I do. People need to hear what I have to say. There’s no one else who can say what I can say. It doesn’t matter what I live.”

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has been accused of "doing nothing" about its growing corruption crisis, by senior official **** Pound.

Several IOC officials have been implicated in corruption in 2017.

In the latest case, police last week raided the home of Carlos Nuzman, head of the Brazilian Olympic Committee, as they investigate "strong evidence" of vote-buying to secure Rio's 2016 bid.

"We've taken a severe hit in terms of credibility," Pound told BBC Sport.

"Every time another IOC member is implicated in something potentially nefarious we lose more credibility."

On Monday, IOC president Thomas Bach said the organisation would act on corruption allegations "once evidence is there".

But Canadian Pound, speaking to the BBC's Alex Capstick at an IOC executive board meeting in Lima, Peru, said: "What are we doing taking all these hits and doing nothing about it? We've got to recognise that we haven't done enough.

"If your conduct has put the IOC into disrepute, you should be liable to at least vigorous investigation and potentially sanctioned for it.

"That has not happened."

Dick Pound is not part any clean solution to sport. Pound said Coe was the man to clean up IAAF??

Coe thinks Federations have 'a role to play' in keeping sport clean! FFS, 'a role to play'.....idiot!

Had to smile at this bit from Coe: “Let our imagination run wild,” he proclaimed, warning that purists mightn’t relish athletics being part of the entertainment business but that’s the reality.

Other highlights for me :Track and field isn’t alone in fighting such cynicism but it is at the forefront of its impact. Anyone able to watch top-flight international athletics entirely at face value has clearly had their credulity gland removed.andBut athletics needs such a flip. It also needs to acknowledge that for much of the public it has been reduced to little more than a game of guess the pharmaceutical cheat

Is the world ever going to find out the truth about Usain Bolt ? or are we witnessing ANOTHER greatest sports cover up ever ? Anything that raises eyebrows in the recent past that anyone has come across ? I'd love to know. thx

masking_agent wrote:Is the world ever going to find out the truth about Usain Bolt ? or are we witnessing ANOTHER greatest sports cover up ever ? Anything that raises eyebrows in the recent past that anyone has come across ? I'd love to know. thx

Probably not...protected entity? Might be too good of a story (and a money maker) to be tarnished. Kinda like the witness protection program. Lol.